Shift in the Shadows
by Siese
Summary: What if Julian didn’t die at the end of the third book? How would things have been different for the gang if he’d been banned from the Shadow World? How would Jenny react?
1. You'll Be All Right

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. The beginning of this story is straight out of the book to let all my beautiful readers know where I'm at in the story.

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Summary: What if Julian didn't die at the end of the third book? How would things have been different for the gang if he'd been banned from the Shadow World? How would Jenny react?

"_We can unmake you!"_ The tall one shrieked and in that moment his voice wasn't beautiful. It was like an ice floe breaking, a cracking, smashing sound of destruction.

"What are they talking about?" Tom said.

His quiet, level voice helped Jenny. "They can cut out his name. If they cut out his name, he dies." Then she said, "Julian—."

"Go on!" He said.

The Shadow men were very, very angry.

"_We have a right to kill!"_

"Then take it!" Julian shouted. "But you won't get past me!"

The thin, scaly fingers of the Shadow Man's other hand were holding a knife. It looked like bone. It glittered like frost.

"Come on, Jenny." Tom said, not moving.

"_Julian_—."

"Go on!" Julian said.

The knife rose and fell.

Jenny heard herself scream. She saw the slash of the blade, the way the liquid diamond spilled like blood. There was a terrible gash in the stave now, a hideous blank space. A wound. They had carved out Julian's name.

Julian staggered.

Jenny wrenched herself away from something that was trying to hold her and fell on her knees beside him. Her thoughts were wheeling and spinning, with no order to them. There must be something to do, some way to help…

Really, she knew by his face that it was too late.

The other Shadow Men were coming in a rush of darkness and freezing wind. Jenny looked up into the maelstrom and tried to lift Julian to his feet.

Then hands pulled at her. Human hands, helping her get Julian up. And then Jenny was running, they were all running, half carrying Julian with them, and the door was right in front of them.

Ice lashed Jenny's back. A freezing tendril grabbed her ankle. But Michael was pushing the door open and Summer and Zach were falling through it—and then Audrey was through, and then she and Tom and Dee were, with Julian. She felt the resistance as she crossed the threshold, the g-force that threw her off balance and made her stumble and land on her knees.

The hallway was too small. There wasn't enough room for all of them, especially with Julian a dead weight. The telephone table went crashing sideways. People were falling on one another. Jenny was kneeling on somebody's leg.

"Get out of the way! We need to close the door!" Dee was shouting.

Everything was confusion. The leg under Jenny moved and she saw Audrey crawling away. She tried to crawl, too, dragging Julian. Tom picked up the telephone table and threw it over her head toward the living room.

Dee kicked the door shut just as the storm reached it.

"What about the circle?" Michael screamed. "Where's a knife, where's a knife?"

Jenny knew she had a knife, but she couldn't move fast enough. Michael grabbed up something from the floor. It was a felt pen, the pen Jenny had used to sketch the rune circle. With a slashing motion, he crossed the circle out. The cross looked like a slanting X, like the rune Nauthiz. The rune of restraint.

"You don't need to do that." Julian said, and his was voice was very distant. Powerless. "They won't come after you. They don't have claim anymore."

He was lying on his back, eyes looking at the ceiling.

(AN: Okay sorry about all this. This is about where my story will begin!)

Jenny took his cold hand in hers. "You'll be all right. You'll be all right." She repeated the words over and over, as though somehow if she said them enough they would come true.

"You—." He was interrupted by a feeble cough. "You should've left me there. Why didn't you?"

Tears formed in Jenny's forest green eyes. "I didn't want them to hurt you anymore."

He managed a small smile. "I think it's a bit late for that, don't you?"

She laughed despite herself. "You'll be all right."

His eyes hardened, boring into hers with all of his will. "Please don't be worried about me." When the tears fell from her eyes, he said, "God, Jenny. Oh God, please don't cry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I put you through all this."

Jenny didn't want him to die. Whether she could admit it aloud or not, she knew then that she cared about him. It didn't matter what he'd done in the past. She understood that he'd only done it because he cared about her. He didn't know what to do with feelings like that, and he handled it the only way he knew possible. If only I'd been able to show him the real way to love, she lamented sadly.

She looked back into his eyes, only to find that they were closed contentedly. She let out a strangled sob, trying not to cry when her boyfriend was only three feet away.

"He isn't dead." Audrey announced gravely.

Jenny's sobbing stopped as though someone had pressed the 'pause' button on a remote control wired to her system. She stared wildly at him, at his chest, watching the gentle rise and fall of his stomach.

"Why isn't he dead?" She asked the silent humans around her.

"That's the obvious question, isn't it?" Zach replied.

"They carved his name out." Jenny continued, not heeding her cousin. "He should be dead. By all means, he should be dead."

"Well," Michael said, his eyebrows in his hair, "I guess we'll just wait and ask him when he wakes up.

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Dee helped Jenny carry Julian to one of the upstairs bedrooms so he could sleep in peace. Dee also helped her remove his duster jacket before pausing to ask if Jenny was going to be all right. Jenny didn't know if Julian was sleeping or if it was some sort of comatose state. Either way, she didn't want to leave his side. Instead, she promised Dee that she was fine and stayed upstairs, sitting beside Julian's bed.

Why didn't Julian die? He'd said if they cut his name out of the runestave that he would die, that that was the _only_ way he could die. So why wasn't he dead?

She took his cool slender fingers in hers. When she felt something cold, like metal or stone, against his palm, she instinctively jerked her hand away. What was that? She wondered. Looking closer and cautiously turning his hand over, she saw a golden circlet. Looking inside the ring to see the inscription, she gasped to see that it had changed. Before, it had read: _All I refuse and thee I chuse_. Now, it read simply: _I am my only master_.

She bit her lip to bite back the oncoming stream of tears. No such luck. She felt the hot, salty wetness begin its slow descent down her cheeks and to her chin, where it dripped off harmlessly on the quilt beside the Shadow Man. She slipped the ring on her finger, feeling the cool metal band warm to her body temperature as if it were a part of her.

Staring at Julian, Jenny realized once again just how gorgeous he was. White hair—icy white hair. Blue eyes the color of the sky just before dawn, an impossible color, a color unlike any other, though now those beautiful eyes were hidden behind closed lids. Sculpted lips, the bottom full and the top slightly smaller than the bottom. She could quite easily picture that sensuous mouth twisting into a cruel grin, but right now it was relaxed.

Her eyes continued down his body, to the hard muscles, covered by slightly tanned flesh. She was so focused on the vulnerable boy in front of her that she didn't notice the one who'd just slipped through the cracked door and stood staring awkwardly at her.

"Jenny."

_Tom_.

Jenny stood up from the bed and whirled to face him. She relaxed when she saw his gentle green-flecked eyes. She smiled softly. "Tom." She said aloud, opening her arms for a hug. He didn't go any closer to her than he already was, however. He was staring at the ring with obvious insecurity.

"You love him." It was not a question, and it was not meant to be.

"What?" She asked, her arms falling back to her sides.

"The others, they mentioned the showdown you two had in the Tunnel of Love and Despair. They said you told him you cared about him."

She was at a loss for words. "Tom, I—."

"It's all right, Thorny." He said, raising his hands toward her as though she were becoming defensive. "I understand, and it's fine. I'm fine just being friends, as long as we can continue to stay on good terms with one another."

"Tom, I went through _hell_ to get to _you_." She said, appalled at what he was saying. Was he breaking up with her?

"But you feel for him. I don't want to stand between the two of you. So, let's be friends, okay?"

Jenny could do nothing but nod and watch him bow his head, perhaps thinking of something, before giving her one last meaningful look—his eyes also glanced down to the comatose form on the bed—and striding out the door.

Visibly shaken and definitely unstable with everything that had just happened, Jenny sat down on the bed, still staring at the place where Tom had just stood.

Did he just break up with me?

**Okay, there's the end of Chapter Uno! I'll try to have the next one out ASAP. It's been forever since I've gotten on here and written anything. Please review this and tell me what you think. All forms of reviews accepted! Even, sadly, flames.**


	2. Awaken

**I OWN NOTHING!**

**Okay, here's Chapter 2, just like I promised! I hope you guys are enjoying this. :)** **And I want to send out a super-special thanks to my first reviewer enchantednight84!

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Jenny awoke groggily, remembering vaguely that she'd lain down beside Julian and fallen asleep almost instantly. Fighting off Shadow Men in an attempt to save the one she thought would love her forever was quite exhausting.

She didn't even bother opening her eyes. She just wanted to sleep forever and never wake up, never face the inquiring gazes of her friends, never see Tom's sorrowful green-flecked eyes, never see Julian's astonishing otherworldly beauty again. She just wanted to stay asleep forever, and then she would never have to worry about facing the world again.

Grudgingly, she reached her arms out on either side of her and stretched.

And realized that Julian's body wasn't there anymore.

She jerked her body into a sitting position, her eyes open wide to see through the darkness of the room—she must've slept into the night. She could see a silhouette at the window, leaning against the frame with cat-like grace.

"Julian?" She asked, her voice hoarse from sleep.

The silhouette turned, and from the silver moonlight and the way the shoulders were, she could tell he was facing her.

She stood up and walked toward him slowly, wondering what mood he would be in now. "Julian?" She asked again. She reached out a timid hand to him, like a child reaching out to a stray dog.

Her stomach somersaulted when he threaded his fingers through hers and pulled her closer. When she was close enough, he wrapped his free arm around her waist and drew her body so near to his that she could feel his hard chest through their clothing.

"Why am I not dead?" He whispered intensely.

From such a close proximity, she could see his bright blue eyes, full of concern and confusion.

She shook her head, entranced by his flawless beauty. The moonlight cast surreal shadows across his face, making him even more seductive than before. "I thought you could tell us. You said if they cut your name out of the runestave then you would die."

"But I'm not dead."

Neither of them talked over a whisper, like the moment was too solemn to break with mere words.

"I know."

"I have a theory." He said, gently running his fingers through her soft tresses. Jenny found it increasingly difficult to focus on the conversation. "Maybe since you took me to your world before I died, that it didn't kill me because I wasn't in the Shadow World. Maybe I can only die if they cut my name out and let me die while I'm there."

"But you're still a Shadow Man?"

He nodded. "Feels like it. But I can't go back to the Shadow World unless I want them to kill me."

"Then don't go back."

"And where do you propose I go?" He responded. "I can't stay with any of you, because you have your own lives to live. And you have _Tommy_." He spit the word like it was a disease.

She shook her head instantly. "Tommy—Tom, and I aren't together anymore." She said. She held up her hand, the one with the ring on her finger. "He saw this."

He smiled and pulled her hand closer to catch the ring in the moonlight. "You found it." Letting her hand drop back to her side, he said, "So what do you want me to do?"

"Why are you asking me?" She asked, perturbed.

"Because you're the one that matters here." He whispered, tucking a lock of her hair behind her head.

She bit her lip. "Don't go back to the Shadow World."

"But then where will I go? I have nothing here." His voice gained a little strength. "My home _is_ the Shadow World. What am I supposed to do now that I can never return there? The others all think I'm dead—."

"Then that means you can start over." She fought the urge to grab his shoulders and shake him. "If they think you're dead then you can do whatever you want and they can't bother you anymore, Julian. You can change now."

That ugly spark returned to his eyes, the same way it did the last time she mentioned that he could change. "But what's the point?" He asked viciously, letting go of her and walking back to the center of the room. "Why should I change? For who? It doesn't matter if I change or not, Jenny. Nothing else has changed, so why should I? Nothing between _us_ has changed."

"That's not true." She protested, her voice soft.

"Isn't it?"

"No." Her voice rose to match his. "We've already changed. We changed when you changed this." She jerked the ring off her finger and showed him the inscription. _I am my only master_.

He reached out for the ring, but he didn't take it out of her fingers. Instead, he lightly touched her fingertips with his. Moonbeam, she thought as she looked up into his blue eyes.

His other hand reached up beneath her hair to cup her neck. He stepped toward her, closing off the distance between them, and bent his head down to hers.

It was—_different_ from any of the other kisses they'd shared. Perhaps because this one wasn't in the Shadow World. She still thought her legs were going to give out, though.

_Knock, knock!_

Jenny jerked back and said loudly, "Come in," which put an effective end to the mood.

All of the gang filed in. First Dee, then Audrey and Michael, Zach and Summer, and finally Tom. Jenny slipped the ring back onto her finger and stared at them all in confusion.

"We want to know what's going on." Dee answered her expression and shrugged. "We could hear you two up here talking so we thought we'd come and join you. We need to know what happened…and what's going to happen."

"Julian can't return to the Shadow World. They'll kill him if they find out he's still alive." She noticed Tom flinched when she said Julian's name.

"Obviously." Audrey retorted.

"So, what are we going to do with him?" Jenny asked, her eyes sweeping across her friends.

"What do you mean 'what are we going to do with him'?" Tom repeated. "He isn't our problem. What _can_ we do with him? He's not one of your stray kittens, Jenny." He sounded like a father reprimanding a child. "You can't just take him home with you."

Jenny looked to Julian. He was standing in profile to her, his thumbs in his pockets. But she couldn't see his face. His head was bowed and turned away from her slightly. His entire stance was in defensive mode.

Tom's words had hurt him, Jenny realized. Nothing for him is like it is in the Shadow World. There, he's on his own turf and no one can touch him, but here—he's unfamiliar with everything, and he's unprepared. Vulnerable.

"Tom…" Jenny started, but she trailed off, realizing there was nothing she could say to make him take back the words or to turn it around on him. He was right, even if he could've found a nicer way to put it. "Guys…listen. Let's go downstairs. We can talk down there. Julian needs to rest." Julian snapped his head up, turning wild blue eyes to her own green ones, which were dark with sympathy.

"All right." Dee agreed and motioned for everyone to follow her downstairs. Tom was the last to leave. He just stood there, watching Jenny and Julian watch each other, their eyes never straying from one another's. Finally, defeated, Tom followed the rest out the door and pulled it closed behind him.

"I'm sorry." Jenny broke the heavy silence between the two of them.

Julian nodded. "It's all right. I should've expected them to be a little less understanding than you." His eyes looked so tired and weary of—_everything_ that it made her heart ache for him. It made her want to take him in her arms and hug him and rock him like a child and say that everything would be okay.

Instead, she said, "I guess I should go down there and talk to them."

He nodded. "I guess you should."

"Try and get some rest, okay? You went through a lot back there."

On her way out the door, she thought she heard him mutter under his breath, "Not as much as you."

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**Don't forget to review my lovelies! I'll get the third chapter out A.S.A.P.**


	3. He needs our help

Disclaimer: blah blah blah. You know the drill. I'm making no money off this and it's strictly for my own and my readers' personal entertainment.

Now, I don't really know what her grandfather's house looks like, so I'm just going to sort of make it up as I go along.

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Downstairs, everyone had settled into the couches and recliners in the living room. Michael and Audrey sat on a couch with their backs to her, Tom sat in a recliner beside the couch, Summer sat in a recliner opposite the couch with Zach in the floor at her feet, stretched out lazily, and Dee stood by the fireplace. They all looked worn and tired.

"What are we talking about down here, sunshine?" Dee asked.

"I think Julian should come with us back home." Jenny announced.

"What?" They all exploded.

"Why?"

"What made you come up with that crazy idea?"

"Haven't we had enough of him yet?"

"Quiet!" Jenny shouted, afraid that Julian would hear them. "Look, he's different. He can't hurt us anymore—."

"You don't know that." Tom said quietly.

"Yes, I do. He may be a Shadow Man in species, but he isn't a Shadow Man by heart anymore—."

"He doesn't have a heart." Tom cut her off again.

"Stop interrupting me." She ordered. "And yes, he does have a heart, or he wouldn't have been so willing to sacrifice himself for me."

"We were willing to sacrifice ourselves for you." Michael intervened softly.

Jenny sighed, trying to calm her frayed nerves. "I know, and I thank you all for it. But don't you get it? He was willing to give up immortality and unspeakable power…for _me_. I can't just leave him in an unfamiliar world and throw him out to the dogs. To someone who's only watched and never taken place in the events here, this could be a scary place. He needs our help now. I can't just leave him when he needs me. He didn't leave me…" She thought back to when he saved her from the freezing water and protected her while she was sleeping.

"So what are we going to do?" Audrey asked. "Where will he stay?"

Jenny blinked. "You're not against me?"

Audrey shrugged. "I trust your judgment. You're the one who led us through all three Games. You're the one who fought for Tom and Zach. You're the one who had to go through that entire house and find us all. I think, that through all that, you've proven yourself more than worthy for a little more credit. Whatever you want to do, I'm behind you." She offered a reassuring smile.

"Dee?"

Dee hesitated, but eventually she nodded. "I'm with you."

"Summer?"

"You saved me, Jenny. I'll always be on your side." She offered a small grin, her pale blonde hair falling about her face like a halo.

Jenny looked to Michael, who grinned. "If Audrey thinks this could work, I have to agree with her—because I trust you and her judgment of this idea, and also because she'll kill me slowly later if I disagree. Do whatever you think you should do, Jenny."

"Zach?" She looked to her cousin, and his gray eyes studied hers intently.

He nodded. "Do what you think you should."

Jenny felt her heart soar at their words. Now there was just one opinion left, and it could possibly decide what all the others thought. Jenny's green eyes looked at Tom's hazel ones. "Tom?"

She almost didn't catch the movement, but he nodded very minutely. Jenny thought her chest was going to burst. They were all on her side. She'd expected them to rebel, to throw her in a dumpster or something for the crazy idea.

"You never answered my question." Audrey broke the silence.

"What question?" Jenny asked, thrown out of her thoughts and back into reality.

"Where is he going to stay?" She repeated.

Jenny looked around the room at all the familiar faces. She hadn't exactly thought that far yet. Her gaze fell across Dee's, and the warrior woman shrugged.

"Well," Dee cut in, "I think the only place for him to stay is your house, Jenny."

Across the room, Tom shot Dee a very nasty look.

"Tom, don't look at me like that." She defended. "Where else do you expect him to stay? She's right in saying that he can't stay on his own because he has no idea how this world works. He doesn't have any money to buy a house or an apartment or even a hotel room for a single night. Zach's parents are too strict to let someone else live in the house with him, especially if they don't already know him. They don't even let him come with us to certain places. Summer probably doesn't want him to stay with her, considering she was nearly killed in his house once."

Summer shuddered in her recliner and drew her knees up in the chair with her to hug them.

Dee continued. "Michael doesn't have an extra room in his apartment with his dad. My parents won't want him in their house, and I don't trust him enough to sleep with him around—no offense, Jenny. Audrey can't let him stay with her because her parents are gone half the time and they won't let him stay there without supervision—and I don't think she'd want to stay in a house alone with him, either. I _know_ you don't want him staying at your place, Tom. You'd wind up tearing each other's throats out. That only leaves Jenny's house."

"How will we get my parents to let him stay? Especially after we ran away from home." Jenny intervened.

Summer perked up. "The Exchange Student program. They're letting people sign up this year to have people from other countries come live with them. You can tell them he's from Canada or something and tell them you just forgot to let them know about it."

"They'll torture me to death for 'casually forgetting to mention it', but it might work." Jenny nodded her head slowly, trying to work out any other flaws her mind could concoct.

"And how do we tell the Shadow Man?" Michael wondered aloud.

Jenny sighed. "I guess I'll go talk to him." She gave Tom a sharp glance and said, "I think we should all try to calm down. Get some rest. We'll go home in the morning when the sun comes up. This is going to be hard on everyone, but we should all try and be patient." Though it was meant for everyone, her eyes never left Tom's.

As she turned around to walk back up the stairs, she wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the nearest bed or couch. She was so tired. Glancing at a clock in the hallway, she saw the hands indicating that it was eleven thirty.

Knocking on the bedroom door that housed Julian and not hearing anything, she opened the door quietly. She'd expected him to be asleep on the bed—which is where she'd choose to be if she could—but instead he was standing at the window again, hands braced against the frame.

"Julian." Jenny said softly, meaning to make her voice sound stronger than it came out sounding.

He didn't reply.

"We…" How am I going to tell him this? She grimaced inwardly. She didn't even know where to begin. "We figured something out, if you're willing to give it a try."

He turned around and leaned against the window, arms crossed defensively. A light bulb came on in Jenny's mind. He thinks we're going to throw him to the dogs. He thinks we're going to try and get rid of him.

"And what is Tom's reaction to this plan that you came up with?" He asked.

Another light bulb. He knows that if Tom likes the idea then Julian won't, and if Tom doesn't like it then Julian will.

"Tom hates the idea."

"What idea?" He urged, now willing to listen.

"We want you to come back to Vista Grande with us." (AN: That _is_ the name of the town they're from, right?)

He stared blankly at her, disbelieving. "What?"

"We want you—."

"I heard you the first time." He cut her off. "But…what?"

How eloquent, she thought ironically. "You have nowhere else to go."

"I know." He hung his head slightly.

"So we want you to come home with us. You can stay with me. Summer said there's an Exchange Student program and that we can tell my parents you're from Canada. That way, they can't say no." During that mouthful, she'd seen his eyes widen when she said 'you can stay with me'.

"You're sure this is all right with you? You won't mind me staying with you all the time?" He asked.

She knew the answer to that question, and it reverberated through her head with a resounding: _yes I'll mind_. But instead, she shook her head. "No, I won't mind." Clearing her throat to rid herself of the awkward moment—in which she was positive he'd seen her cheeks flush with color—she continued by saying, "We're leaving for home in the morning, so you should get some rest."

"I'm not tired." He responded instantly, eyelids drooping back to normal.

I guess he just went through another mood swing. "Well, I am. I'm going to go down the hall to the other bedroom to get some sleep. You really should try and catch some yourself. It's going to be a long trip home."

He nodded, his eyes never leaving her back as she strode to the door and left him alone in the bedroom.

**So sorry for the delay! I know I promised to get this out as soon as I could, but I just had major writers block, not to mention school, marching band—and I have to be at every football game on Friday night to march the field show and my Saturdays are taken up with all-day competitions—homework, midterms were last week, a new boyfriend—yay! He's quite sexy if I do say so myself, too—and anything else you can come up with. Thankfully, none of my reviewers for my Pirates of the Caribbean story and Pitch Black story have decided to kidnap me for not updating those, but I'm working on it! I sowwy! I'll try to do better. Just hang in there with me.**


	4. Next Stop, Home

Yay! Another chapter. No, I'm not dead, no matter what you may have heard. At least I'm on Christmas break, so I have a little more time on my hands. Woo hoo…not. I've actually been really busy, and today is Christmas Eve so I probably won't get to update any of my stories at least until later in the week. So I thought I'd go ahead and post this chapter.

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The next morning found Jenny newly showered and headed down the stairs to meet up with the group. Dee greeted her from her stance at the window.

"Morning, sunshine." She glanced up at the clock above the fireplace. "Half the clan is awake now."

Jenny nodded. "Who's still asleep?"

"Zach, Julian, Tom, and Mike." She replied. "Interesting how it's always the men who sleep late." She commented with a feral grin on her face.

Jenny chuckled, but inside she was thankful that Dee was acting normal despite their situation. It was doing wonders for her nerves. She joined Dee at the window and peered out at the sky. The sun was shining down brightly, and the abrupt amount of light hurt the backs of Jenny's eyes. She closed her eyes with a groan and turned away.

"Good morning, Jenny." Summer piped as she emerged from the bathroom door. "I was just brushing my teeth."

Jenny smiled. It was so wonderful to have Summer safe once again. And her family would be thrilled to have her home. "I did all of that in the upstairs bathroom. I can officially say I am squeaky clean."

"Me, too." Audrey cut in as she descended the stairs. "I woke up an hour before you, Jenny."

"I beat you all!" Dee said. "I got up two hours before everyone. I didn't sleep very well."

"Neither did I." Summer said softly, running her fingers through her shimmering tresses.

Audrey sighed. "I doubt any of us did. This is all so bizarre."

While they conversed, Jenny was running a checklist through her head. And when she came to the problem of introducing Julian to her family, she voiced it aloud. "How are we going to tell my parents about Julian? We can't have the police question him, but if he shows up with us when we get home then they'll know he was with us. Which means he can't be with us when we first go home. Not to mention, an exchange student would have suitcases, and all Julian has is what he's wearing. What are we going to do?"

"Will we have any extra money when we get off the plane later? We could take him…shopping…" After Audrey spoke that last sentence, they all stared at each other with a wildly humorous look on their faces. Julian and _shopping_ just did not mix when you think about it. All at once, they burst into laughter.

Jenny was hugging her stomach and wiping tears from her eyes when Michael lumbered down the stairs and asked, "What are you all laughing at?"

That only brought up the images of Julian shopping again and they started the process all over again. Michael stopped on the staircase and stared at them warily. "You've all gone insane, haven't you?"

"What's going on?" Zach asked, coming to a stop behind Michael as he watched the girls laugh and hold their stomachs.

Michael shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"What's all that noise?" Tom's voice could be heard from the top of the steps. "Good job of waking everyone up guys."

Slowly, their laughter died out—though a chuckle still erupted now and then. Jenny stared around at the other girls. Their eyes were watery and their faces were red, but they all looked happy. The way they used to look at the girly sleepovers they used to have before all this Shadow World business began. They were all beaming at one another happily.

"That felt good." Dee said.

Summer, Audrey, and Jenny nodded. "It did." Jenny replied. "I needed that."

"We all did." Audrey said.

The guys clambered down the stairs and flopped down onto the assorted couches and chairs, and the girls soon followed—all except Jenny. She leaned against the window, wondering what would happen when they got home.

"Wonder how everyone will react when they see Summer." Michael spoke up after a bout of silence. It appeared Jenny wasn't the only one thinking about getting home.

Summer seemed torn between a frown and a smile. "I want to go home. But I don't want to deal with all the questions. What are we going to tell them?" Heads turned to stare at Jenny.

Jenny sighed and walked to the fireplace. "I don't know what we'll say. We tried telling them about Julian already and they didn't believe us. We'll have to make something up."

"Tell them you got a phone call from someone saying they thought they'd seen Summer here, so we came to investigate."

"That wouldn't explain why we went off on our own." Tom argued. "We need something foolproof."

"What if we tell them we were depressed and needed to get away for a while? Depressed that Summer 'died'?" Audrey suggested. "And we can say we found Summer here at Joyland Park. She can tell the police that she was kidnapped on the night of your party, but that she never saw the kidnapper because he always had her eyes covered."

"Then how did we find her at a _theme park_?" Dee asked.

"Um…"

"Oh! I know!" Michael said, bouncing up and down on the cushion beneath him. "Amnesia! She hit her head and got a concussion. The kidnapper was pushing her up a set of stairs and he had her blindfolded, so she missed a step and went tumbling down the stairs. She doesn't remember anything after that or how she got to the park. She only remembers when we found her."

Jenny nodded slowly. "It's a long shot, but it's all we've got."

"What about the exchange student problem we thought about earlier?" Dee asked, a grin plastered on her dark face.

Jenny chuckled. "We really need to take him shopping, whether he wants to or not. He's got to have suitcases full of clothes and other personal items in order to make it believable that he's actually from Canada."

"You want to take Julian, a Shadow Man, _shopping_?" Michael repeated in disbelief. "That's what you were laughing about earlier?"

"Yeah." Jenny said, trying to sound innocent. "He just doesn't seem to fit the description of a shopper, does he?"

All three of the guys chuckled, their laughter being obviously more controlled than the girls'. Michael was shaking his head and muttering, "That's hilarious. You want to take Julian shopping."

"You want to do what with me?" A new voice cut in, clear as crystal, sharp as glass, and deadly as a silver blade.

All laughter died out instantly. Jenny gulped. It didn't seem very funny anymore. She knew he wouldn't like the idea, and he _really_ wouldn't like knowing they'd just been laughing about him.

"We…we want to—no we have to…take you shopping when we get off the plane later today." It ended in a rush.

He narrowed his eyes in disgust. "Why?"

"Because," Jenny said, placing her hands on her hips. "If you want to pass for an exchange student from Canada then we have to get you suitcases and clothes—besides the ones you have on—not mention a toothbrush and hairbrush and all that other stuff you're supposed to have."

"Oh, and Jenny, we never figured out how we're going to introduce him to your parents." Dee said. She seemed the least disturbed by Julian's powerful presence. Her calm demeanor was doing wonders for Jenny's nerves.

That's what it is, Jenny realized. He may not be in the Shadow World, but he still does something to you when he's in the same room with you. It's like his presence is _there_, and you can feel it on some strange level of your subconscious. Because he's technically still a Shadow Man.

"Well…" Jenny sighed. "God, this is awfully complicated. Um…why don't we save some of our money and buy him a hotel room to stay in for the night, and the next morning one of us can go get him and drop him off at my house. From there he can just knock on the door or something and I'll be like, 'oh goodness! Mom, Dad, this is Julian. He's an exchange student from Canada that you'll be housing until God knows when'."

"That works." Michael nodded.

She looked to Julian for approval, but he was staring at the floor like he was trying to burn a hole in it. She shuddered, gaining his attention. He turned that electric blue gaze on her, and she could've sworn the temperature in the room escalated by five degrees.

A horn honked somewhere outside, and Jenny jumped nearly about two feet in the air. Julian snickered. "Not jumpy, are we?" He asked and strode over to her, hands behind his back.

"Does everyone have their stuff?" She asked. "We really should get going." Well, she realized, I don't. She ran upstairs with a little squeal and threw all her things into her suitcase and then slid down the rail on the staircase in an attempt to go faster. She only wound up bumping into two people on their way out the door.

Only the four of them that had entered the Shadow World of their free will had suitcases: Dee, Audrey, Jenny, and Michael. That meant Summer, Zach, Tom, and Julian were free of burden.

They filed out of the house and began the trek to the bus stop. They'd been outside a grand total of two minutes when Julian made a comment about how bright it was.

"It's called sunlight." Tom shouted from the front of the group.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" Julian called back. "Next time try telling me the temperature or something I don't already know."

"Will you two cut it out?" Jenny broke in. "You two are like brothers or something. Just chill out."

She turned away from everyone else, looking at the little shops and stores. What caught her eye was a rack at the front door of one of those little shops. She put her suitcase down and ran inside. When she emerged moments later, she handed Julian a pair of brand new sunglasses.

Jenny didn't realize what a bad idea that was until he'd put them on. It made him look even more surreal because she couldn't tell if he was looking at her or someone else. She mentally kicked herself. Well, I guess there's nothing I can do about it now.

They continued walking, all eight of them in their own silence. They must have looked like an odd group, a bunch of teenagers walking down the sidewalk carrying heavy suitcases—all but one of them, anyway—and none of them joking around like people their age are supposed to.

When they finally reached the bus stop, they all plopped down on the bench and heaved a sigh of relief. Even the ones that weren't carrying anything were tired from the walk. There was an overhang over the bench, so they had a bit of shade to relax under until the bus made its rounds. Jenny closed her eyes and lifted her hair off the back of her neck, exposing it to the soft breeze.

"Let's rent a cab next time." She groaned.

"For eight people?" Audrey asked.

"Yeah. We can be like those clowns at the circus that all pile into that one tiny little car." She snorted, along with a few others.

"You think they ever get cramped inside that little thing?" Michael asked, staring at the clouds in the deep blue sky. "I mean, how do they really do it?"

"Just one of life's little mysteries." Audrey replied.

Dee sat up. "The bus is coming."

Everyone groaned, stood back up, and Jenny walked over to the end of the bench to retrieve her suitcase. There was one little problem, though—her suitcase was gone.

She glanced around her, eyes wide. Did someone steal it? She looked at the others as they climbed aboard the bus and noticed Julian carrying her stuff. He didn't look back at her, but she was very grateful that he was helping her. Her arms had developed cramps.

On the bus, she found a seat by the others as the suitcases were put into the top compartment. When everyone was seated, with Jenny sitting by the aisle in a crummy and ripped seat with Dee, she noticed a familiar white head sitting in the seat in front of them. With a quick glance on the other side of the aisle, she noticed Tom sitting right across from Julian. It was definitely obvious how tense the two were with each other, no matter how well they thought they covered it.

Jenny sighed. It didn't matter right now. There was only one thing on her mind: Next stop—home.

* * *

Don't forget to review, and I'll start working on the next chapter as soon as I get the chance. 


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